E D U C AT I O N A N D T R A I N I N G

Examining the preferred learning styles (PLSs) of nursing and

midwifery students of Urmia University of Medical Sciences

Khatereh Almasi (1)

Solmaz Mansour Bavani (2)
Yousef Mohammadpour (3)

(1) MSc in nursing, Master of Nursing education, Islamic Azad University, Urmia, Iran
(2) MSc in nursing, Master of Nursing education, Faculty Member of Islamic Azad University, Urmia,
Iran.
(3) Academic board member of faculty of nursing and midwifery, Urmia University of Medical
Science

Corresponding author:
Khatereh Almasi
Islamic Azad University,
Urmia, Iran
Email: khatereh.almasi65@gmail.com

Abstract
Introduction: Education happens at universities to im-
prove the level of students’ academic achievement,
and concerning this, paying attention to the styles by
which students learn plays a crucial role in improv-
ing the quality of education and achieving educational
goals. The present study was conducted to determine
PLSs of nursing and midwifery students in Urmia Uni-
versity of Medical Sciences.
Key words: learning style, nursing students, midwifery
students, education
Please cite this article as: Almasi K. et al. Examining the
preferred learning styles (PLSs) of nursing and midwifery
students of Urmia University of Medical Sciences. World
Family Medicine. 2018;16(1):241-244
DOI: 10.5742/MEWFM.2018.93227

Methods: This study was conducted as descriptive

cross-sectional with participation of 100 second year
(and students of later years) students in nursing and
midwifery by census method. Data was gathered us-
ing VARK learning style questionnaire whose validity
and reliability were confirmed and analyzed by SPSS
16 and descriptive and inferential statistics.

Results: The priority order of students’ PLSs was so

that the visual style was the most common, and kines-
thetic learning style was the least common style used
by the students. Other results indicated no statistically
significant relationship between learning styles with
gender, field of study and students’ interest in their
field of study (P<0.05).

Discussion and Conclusion: Visual styles are the most

common learning style for nursing and midwifery stu-
dents. Accordingly, using visual education media can
improve students’ learning, so it is recommended that
professors apply evidence-based teaching so as to
improve the quality of education at the nursing and
midwifery faculties.

WORLD
WORLD FAMILY
FAMILY MEDICINE/MIDDLE
MEDICINE/MIDDLE EAST
EAST JOURNAL
JOURNAL OFOF FAMILY
FAMILY MEDICINE
MEDICINE VOLUME
VOLUME 1516 ISSUE
ISSUE 10,1,DECEMBER
JANUARY 2018
2017
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 E D U C AT I O N A N D T R A I N I N G
Introduction
The purpose of nursing education is preparing students
for professional work (1). Training and learning play a
significant role in the development of nursing skills and the
proper implementation of care and more understanding of
this point leads to more targeted and consistent behavior
(2). In line with this learning, in accordance with their
individual differences, students process the information in
various ways (3). These practices have an important effect
on the outcomes of educational activity as well (2). Hence,
it should be said that effective learning and gaining nursing
expertise will not be reached regardless of how students
properly learn and what is today called students’ learning
style.
Learning style is one of the main processes of education
(2) and is a part of individual differences (4) affecting
learning (5). Learning style is a natural, habitual, unique
and persistent preferred method used to absorb, process,
and maintain information and new skills (6). Awareness
of the students’ learning style can change and adjust
educational methods in line with these styles and result in
higher educational efficiency (7). Thus, their identification
and guidance can play an important role in selecting
teaching methods and imparting concepts and knowledge
to learners and ultimately improving the level of education
(8). This comes from the fact that lack of proper learning of
some learners, despite the presence of the best teachers,
can show a lack of fit between teaching and learning styles
(9). Thus, outcomes of learning will improve if learning
is in line with students’ learning styles (10). Awareness
of students’ learning styles can also directly or indirectly
contribute to positive points such as enhancing learning
motivation in students (11), organizing the learning
environment, teachers’ interaction with students (12),
eliminating educational system failures (13), helping
improve the teaching structure with the tendency toward
students’ individual choices, and ultimately the proper
development of educational approaches (8).
Determining the learning style in the majority of studies
in Iran has been conducted using Kolb Learning Style
Inventory, and maybe, it is the justification why learning
style and its related concepts are not clearly explained and
the variables are not fully recognized in Iranian nursing
education (2). Today, one of the newest ways to determine
learning styles is VARK questionnaire, developed by
Lincoln University of New Zealand in 1998. VARK
approach is based on three principles: everyone has their
own styles, the learner’s motivation is increased when
different learning styles of learners are taken into account,
and educational concepts are learned through utilization
of senses and different perceptions of educational content
(8). Accordingly, students’ learning styles are divided into
visual, aural, reading-writing, kinesthetic, and sometimes a
combination of the mentioned styles (8, 14).
The results of various studies have given various results
about the common styles of student learning, so that in
some studies, the preferred style of students is visual (7,
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15, 16), aural (6, 17), kinesthetic (18) and reading-writing
(8). In some other studies, student PLS is not a particular
style but a combination of them (19, 20).
The diversity of the results shows the importance and
necessity of conducting studies to measure the learning
style of students of each university. This becomes more
prominent as promoting the quality in the design and
presentation of education requires attention to the learner’s
learning style (7). Accordingly, today, in many colleges
around the world, students’ learning styles assessment is
done as a necessary requirement for the awareness of the
professors of the students’ capacities (6). Thus, our study
was aimed at determining the learning styles of nursing
and midwifery students of Urmia Nursing and Midwifery
Faculty, so that its results could be used to improve the
quality of nursing education.
Method
The present study was descriptive cross-sectional where
100 students of nursing and midwifery of Urmia University
of Medical Sciences were selected from among third and
higher terms of nursing and midwifery in census form and
studied as the sample. VARK questionnaire was used for
collecting data, where learning styles are specified in four
categories: Visual, Aural, Read & write, and kinesthetic.
The questionnaire consisted of 16 four-option questions,
where each option represented one of the learning styles:
A was related to visual, B to aural, C to reading-writing, and
D to kinesthetic styles. After submitting the questionnaires
to the students, the required guidance was given to them.
Students were completely free to choose options, so that
they could select 1, 2, 3, and even four choices. Ultimately,
given the priorities selected, the scores for the options
of each style were summed up and a final score was
recorded for each style and prioritization of the styles was
determined, so that a higher score in each of the learning
types showed more tendencies of the students towards that
style. To determine the validity of the questionnaire after its
translation and resolving the ambiguities of translation, we
used content validity and the views of faculty members.
The reliability of the questionnaire was estimated using
Cronbach’s alpha coefficient as 0.9 after completion by
15 students. Ultimately, data was analyzed using SPSS
16 and descriptive and inferential statistics. At the level of
descriptive statistics, mean and standard deviations were
used to show the central tendency indices with independent
t-test used at inferential statistics.
Results
From among 100 students among whom the questionnaires
were distributed, 80 students returned them - 80% of
the questionnaires were returned completed - of whom
54 were females (67%) and 26 were males (33%). The
mean and standard deviation of the styles were as follows:
aural learning style, 33.5 ± 4.3; reading-writing, 30.7 ± 3;
kinesthetic, 29.4 ± 6, and visual 42.5 ± 5.5, and according
to the results of t test the differences between them were
statistically significant. Thus, the results indicated that

the most frequent learning style was visual and the
least kinesthetic. No significant differences were found
between nursing and midwifery students in determining
the relationship between learning styles and student’s field
of study. Moreover, there were no significant differences
between learning styles concerning students’ gender
(P>0.05). According to non-parametric statistical test of
Chi-square, there was no significant difference between
learning styles and students’ interest in their field of study
(P <0.05).
Discussion and Conclusion
The order of the learning styles of nursing and midwifery
students was visual, aural, reading-writing and kinesthetic.
This means that the common learning style of nursing
and midwifery students in Urmia is the visual style where
learners learn the content better by viewing and presenting
information such as viewing images, symbols and diagrams
(7, 14). The level of human learning by sight is more than
the other five senses (about 75%). Students’ study and
learning methods are based on the use of visual sense,
and they learn the concepts better presented in form of
conceptual maps, figures, diagrams, models, and replicas.
Thus, the student’s preferred style is visually oriented (7).
The common style of students in various studies is a diverse
range of all four existing styles. In a study completely in line
with the present result and in the study of Amini, PLSs of
most medical students with a mean score of 39.26 ± 6.87
was visual and the least used style was kinesthetic (7).
In the present study, there was no significant difference
between students’ learning styles and gender. This finding
was consistent with the results of studies in this regard (6,
7, 23). Perhaps no significant difference here is because
most of the time in a school, various lessons are taught
to both students of the same sex in the same way, and
this is school education having a great role in student’s
PLSs, and then the university cannot effect much change
Table 1. Distribution of students
Table 2. Student learning styles
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E D U C AT I O N A N D T R A I N I N G
on it. (6). This reason can further justify the findings of this
study denoting the lack of significance of the relationship
between students’ learning styles with the student’s field of
study, as well as the degree of interest of students in the
topic.
In the present study, VARK questionnaire was used to
determine the student’s PLSs. On the one hand, given the
emergence and prevalence of new media and technology
in the learning and learning process and the necessity
of using various senses by the learner, a new tool is
needed to identify the students’ sensory learning styles,
appropriate media and educational materials. On the other
hand, VARK learning style advantage is that it can come up
with information on learning strategies and media methods
appropriate to these styles (7). Thus, knowing that each
student has a type of learning style can assist teachers
in selecting the proper teaching method and the type of
educational aid (8). Thus, given the capabilities of this
questionnaire, it is necessary to be aware of the students’
PLSs, so that based on the results; one can apply the
appropriate methods to provide education. Consequently,
conducting empirical studies is recommended for use for
teaching strategies to promote student learning according
to the learning style. Moreover, it is recommended to carry
out studies to determine the possibility of using VARK tool
as a screening test for the learning cycle weaknesses and
the possibility of providing individual recommendations for
improving the learning process in the students. Given the
results, it is recommended that the professors of medicine
faculty pay utmost attention to students’ learning style in
selecting the methods of teaching to make teaching more
desirable and make learning more effective for learners.
Furthermore, it is suggested that professors should pay
attention to other effective variables in learning style in
their teaching and avoid the same teaching style for all
students.
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18. Baykan Z, Nacar M. Learning styles of first-year

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